Posts Tagged ‘continuous data protection’

As the cloud gains steam and expands, disaster recovery has become more effective. Creative ideas involving replication have evolved as it pertains to recovery solutions for disasters. Not always inexpensive, the best solutions provide almost instant recovery times.

Continuous data protection (CDP) using virtual machines for data replication in the cloud is probably the most reliable solution to date.

(For the purposes of this discussion, bandwidth is plentiful and security procedures have been established.)

There are two very good solutions for CDP disaster recovery on virtual machines:

1. Pure cloud

This solution is straight forward. If you’re running your applications purely on the cloud, with nothing local, then the managed service provider (MSP) can be responsible for disaster recovery. If the primary cloud site fails, a secondary cloud site will take over with a “flick of the switch” of duplicate data and virtual machines running the applications. After recent outages at Amazon’s AWS, MSPs are ensuring they have more reliable disaster recovery solutions.

2. Replication to virtual machines from local systems

This solution works well for companies that want their data on the premises, as well as in the cloud. There are a few steps:

a. Service provider installs an on-premise device that replicates all local data.

b. On-premise system replicates with virtual machines in the cloud.

c. In the event of an on-premise disaster, the “switch is flipped,” and the virtual machines in the cloud take over.

Remember, these solutions must be clearly identified in any service-level agreement (SLA) with the MSP. A key element will be the recovery time objectives (RTO). How long can the system be down before the business is impacted? There are some key areas you want to make sure are covered, and that you fully understand, to make sure they meet your business needs and that no surprises come up should disaster strike.

1. Read the Service Level Agreement (SLA)

Read and understand the SLA being offered by your cloud service provider. Understand what constitutes a disaster, ask questions and walk through scenarios to be sure you fully understand what constitutes a disaster and the specifics around a DR event. Who declares a disaster, what processes and technologies are in place to minimize the impact to customers, and how long will it take to restore service. If a few hours of downtime seems like an eternity, and if your business cannot survive it, a cloud service may not be right for you.

2. Recovery Point Objective

The word disaster implies that bad things have happened, and when it comes to an IT service, that usually implies data loss. Make sure you understand the recovery point objective of the service so you know just how much data loss is possible in the event disaster strikes.

3. Recovery Time Objective

Communicate to all stakeholders the time that has been agreed to in your Service Level agreement for recovering from the disaster. Make sure that all stakeholders have agreed to the recovery time before signing up with the cloud service.